Wednesday, September 30, 2015

12:38 PM

Gov. Scott Walker’s job approval continued to drop in the latest Marquette University Law School poll, dipping to 37 percent.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump took over the top spot in the GOP primary, and Hillary Clinton's support at the front of the Dem pack was steady. Russ Feingold also saw his lead over U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, bump back up.

Taken in the days after Walker dropped out of the presidential race, the survey found 59 percent of registered voters disapproved of the job he was doing. In the last Marquette poll conducted in August, Walker’s job approval rating split was 39-57.

Since dropping out, Walker has said he may run for a third term. The poll, though, found 35 percent would support another Walker bid, while 62 percent did not want to see him run again.

The survey also found a shakeup in the GOP primary with Walker now out of the field. He was in first place at 25 percent in the last poll.

Now, Donald Trump leads the GOP field at 20 percent, up from 9 percent. Ben Carson was next at 16 percent, Marco Rubio at 14 percent and Carly Fiorina at 11 percent. No one else broke double digits.

The poll found if Walker had stayed in the race, he would have been at 28 percent.

On the Dem side, Clinton was at 42 percent with Bernie Sanders at 30 percent and Joe Biden, who has not said if he will run, at 17 percent. In August, Clinton was at 44 percent, Sanders 32 and Biden 12.

In the U.S. Senate race, Feingold led Johnson 50-36. In August, Feingold was up 47-42.

The survey of 803 registered voters was conducted Thursday through Monday and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percent points. Forty-five percent of the interviews were done via cellphone with the rest over land lines.

The subsample of 321 Republicans and GOP-leaning independents had a margin of error of plus or minus 6.5 percentage points, while the questions asked of the 394 Dem and Dem-leaning independents had a margin of error of plus or minus 5.9 percentage points.

Friday, September 25, 2015

6:06 PM

Gov. Scott Walker today brushed off a question about the timing of his presidential campaign's reimbursements to the state for security and travel expenses, saying he has been paying the bills all along.

The guv, speaking to reporters at the 40th anniversary celebration of Apache Stainless Equipment Corp. in Beaver Dam, said his now-suspended campaign will adhere to the payment process it has been following.

"Bills get submitted," Walker said. "Every penny will be paid just as it has been in the past."

Still, the guv could not say how much his campaign owes the state.

"I don't know," he said. "I just know in the end we've already made payments along the way and, again, that'll be top of the list in terms of payments."

Walker also made clear he intends to serve the three remaining years of his term, will not run for U.S. Senate and has no interest in a cabinet position should a Republican take over the White House.

"I plan on being governor," he said. "I'm not positioning myself for anything else."

He stuck to that position even after it was pointed out he made similar comments prior to his re-election as governor. He said he has made his disinterest in a cabinet position "crystal clear," and he showed no hesitation in dismissing a Senate run.

"All the other governors I've talked to who've told me they went from governor to United States Senate have told me how miserable they are," Walker said. "And I have no interest in being miserable."

The guv, though, was less certain when discussing the possibility of running for re-election when his current term expires. He said "it's a bit premature" for him to make that decision.

Likewise, Walker was uncertain about launching another run for the presidency.

"I've got three years being governor," he said. "Who knows what the future will hold after that?"

And he said speculation that he might wind up on the Republican ticket as a vice presidential candidate is "presumptuous" at this point.

Walker, though, for the most part stayed on message, pushing hard for a proposed overhaul of the state's civil service system. For instance, in response to a question about repealing the state's minimum-markup law, the guv said only that he "just had a talk about it the other day" before redirecting to the civil service changes unveiled yesterday.

And the guv insisted that despite comments from past years about how he believes civil service protections are crucial for state employees, he is not going back on his word. He said merit-based hiring will remain intact and just-cause firing will be clarified.

"What we get rid of is the silliness and the ridiculous stuff that's arcane," he said. "We're moving hiring and recruitment into the 21st century instead of where it's at, which is the 20th century."

When not discussing civil service changes or his future, Walker talked about what it would take to settle back into his "day job" as governor. He said it comes down to just being present.

He said after the Apache visit, he planned on attending the Saturday funeral of Supreme Court Justice Patrick Crooks, going to the upcoming Badgers and Packers games and travelling the state.

He used his speech at Apache to talk about the drop in unemployment since he took office and a state budget that has the "lowest level of bonding in 20 years." He said he will continue to focus on growing the state's workforce in manufacturing through apprenticeships and technical colleges.

He said the state that can do that is "going to be the state that leads the country going forward." When he made that comment during the speech, though, he initially started to say "country" instead of "state."

3:17 PM

In today's Walker Watch: Presidential Candidate Marco Rubio gained supporters and donors in New Hampshire following Gov. Scott Walker's decision to suspend his campaign, and pundits analyze the cause and effect of the governor's exit. This will be the final regular Walker Watch for the 2016 presidential campaign, but look out for special editions when Walker draws national coverage.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

11:49 AM

In today's Walker Watch: Gov. Scott Walker says he has no interest leaving for a cabinet position, the governor makes his first public appearance since suspending his presidential campaign, and the remaining candidates work to win over Walker's donors and supporters.

9:52 AM

Scott Walker's campaign manager Rick Wiley rejected criticism he grew the guv's staff too quickly, arguing it was a necessary step to prepare Walker for a national race.

Over the final weeks of the campaign, a regular knock emerged that Wiley had built too big of a staff too early. But Wiley tells WisPolitics.com a national infrastructure had to be built around Walker because none existed. While he had a national network of donors, Walker needed bundlers, for example.

"We had to build that," Wiley said. "In order to build something, you had to spend money to build it."

Wiley said the campaign started seeing a drop in its fundraising after the first GOP debate in Cleveland. Still, he wanted to see a few weeks of numbers before concluding it was a definite pattern. Then a swing through Texas that was supposed to raise $500,000 pulled in just $184,00, Wiley said. Walker has long been known for his ability to raise money through his small donors. But one mailing cost more to send than it raised.

Wiley said ahead of the second debate he started putting together a plan to scale back the campaign and presented it to Walker on Sunday. It included going down to 20 staffers, about one-fourth of what was on the payroll, with a budget of about $1 million a month. Wiley said he was also honest with Walker that fundraising had taken such a hit that he was not confident the campaign could raise that kind of money.

"I was brutally honest with him," Wiley said. "I won't say that my recommendation was to drop out. But I told him in stark terms it's really going to be hard to sustain a staff of 20."

The next day, Walker met with a small group of longtime confidantes at the executive residence before making the final decision to end his campaign, according to sources with direct knowledge of the meeting. Some have portrayed Tonette Walker as pulling the meeting together. But others noted the relationship between Walker and his wife in suggesting it was unlikely that the first lady took any action without the guv's knowledge.

The meeting didn't include Wiley; some sources suggest he was left out so the guv could get feedback on the campaign's resources and how it could move forward without someone in the room who had a personal stake in the outcome. Just hours later, Walker formally announced that he was suspending his campaign.

Wiley said the five-week span between the two GOP presidential debates proved fatal with too many missteps on the campaign trail.

"The birthright citizenship was the beginning of the end," Wiley said. "That was the week we really saw fundraising numbers start to plummet."

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

8:07 PM

With his presidential campaign behind him, it’s time for Gov. Scott Walker to fix his brand, Wisconsin insiders say.

And the political pros have plenty of suggestions how to do it:

Get back in the good graces of Wisconsinites, who recently have awarded him upside-down poll ratings.

Be an effective surrogate for the eventual GOP nominee.

Create an agenda that reinforces the argument that he gets things done.

“He’s going to go back to doing what he did before,” said longtime GOP strategist Mark Graul. “That’s focus on implementing common-sense conservative reforms in Wisconsin that get the notice and the attention of the whole country.”

Walker built his campaign for the presidency on the premise that he’s a fighter who was "unintimidated" by anyone, a reference to his book title. But his repeated missteps on the trail undercut that argument as voters saw him flip flop on issues. He took multiple positions on birthright citizenship in just one week, said building a wall along the Canadian border was a “legitimate issue” and remarked that taking on 100,000 Capitol protesters meant his was prepared to fight ISIS.

Along the way, a campaign rapidly built up to match his status as a frontrunner burned money at an unsustainable rate as donations started to track with his falling poll numbers.

Now, Walker faces questions of how he can boost his ratings at home while being relevant nationally if he’s interested in making another bid for the presidency.

The conventional wisdom has been that Walker won't seek a third term in 2018, meaning he would need a bridge between leaving the guv’s office and firing up another presidential run.

Should a Republican win the White House next year, Walker could join the cabinet. But that would also mean he wouldn’t have another chance to run until 2024, a long time to be out of the public eye.

But if Dems continue to hold onto the White House, Walker could leave office early in 2019 and take the time to deepen his grasp on foreign policy and other domestic issues outside his comfort zone before another presidential run. That could be an attractive alternative to the cram sessions Walker had leading up to this bid, particularly after he spent 2014 preoccupied with his gubernatorial re-election campaign.

Before that, Walker may need to mend some fences with the legislative Republicans.

The budget process was contentious at times. And some lawmakers balked when the guv said on the campaign trail he had to take on the GOP establishment back home to push through collective bargaining changes, describing some legislators as hesitant to take on the status quo.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos downplayed those rifts, saying to Walker’s credit he corrected his initial re-telling of the effort to pass the collective bargaining changes. He said Walker will likely benefit from getting back in the public eye in Wisconsin to remind voters of the things he’s accomplished since taking office.

“Gov. Walker has spent more time out of the state. I’ve heard some complaining about that, and I’m not going to lie,” the Rochester Republican said. “But I think that many of those will fall by the wayside as he re-engages with Wisconsin, talks about all the issues important to him, just like he’s done really for the past four years.”

Speculation has been rampant for weeks on whether Walker would finish his term regardless of how the presidential race played out. Insiders have also questioned whether Walker would be engaged in the 2017-19 budget, for example, and interested in dealing with the transportation fund after having a taste of the national spotlight.

And if he's assembling that next budget, some have speculated it could be as difficult as the one lawmakers finished in July because he would still want to sign a fiscally conservative document that would position him well in a GOP primary. That would mean no gas tax or fee hikes for the transportation fund, a source of friction with some Republican lawmakers.

Joint Finance Co-Chair John Nygren said he didn’t think tensions would linger between the guv and his caucus. Looking to the next budget, the Marinette Republican also didn’t expect a problem on things like the transportation fund, “if his intention is to solve the problem.”

“If the answer is no and continue down the road without addressing the issue, then there will be tension,” Nygren said. “My biggest frustration of the budget was we didn’t solve that issue.”

One Walker supporter had a simple answer to mending bridges with GOP lawmakers.

The postmortem being written nationally on Walker has focused on his verbal stumbles. They became a particular problem after lackluster debate performances and dropping poll numbers prompted nervous donors to start calling for a staff shakeup.

Minnesota media mogul Stanley Hubbard was one of Walker’s top donors and sometimes channeled messages to the guv through the media.

Hubbard said he called Walker on Friday to suggest he meet with some consultants to sharpen his presentation. He noted voters in Wisconsin came to know Walker personally because of his extensive travels in the state, and he connected with them. That came across in the TV reports he watched on Walker from the Twin Cities.

But Walker lacked star power on national TV and, like it or not, that’s something candidates need in this environment. Donald Trump has it, Hubbard said, Walker does not.

“I’d go to acting school and learn how to really perform,” Hubbard said. “That doesn’t mean you change what you say, just how you say it.”

Former Gov. Tommy Thompson noted he is likely the only person in Wisconsin who can relate to what Walker is now going through, dropping his own bid for the presidency in 2007 after money troubles and issues gaining traction in Iowa.

He had a simple piece of advice for Walker: “take two weeks off.”

Thompson said once Walker has time to get over the disappointment of dropping out of the race, he should re-introduce himself to Wisconsin by traveling the state extensively.

Beyond that, Thompson said Walker had any number of options ahead of him, whether it’s running for re-election in 2018, taking a stab at the U.S. Senate or finding something in the private sector. Thompson declined to say what Walker should do to have the best foundation for a possible second run at the presidency. Still, Thompson noted he ran at the wrong time after being out of office for seven years and should have mounted a bid in 1996 or 2000, when he would have been a stronger candidate.

“Scott Walker ran at the right time,” Thompson said. “He was at the top of his game. He had the highest publicity. He was the leader of the pack for a long time. How many people can get a chance to say when I announced, I was No. 1?"

11:03 AM

The Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters and its partners today released a third ad in its $1.6 million campaign targeting U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson over carbon pollution.

In the new spot, which will air in Green Bay, Madison and Milwaukee like the others, the narrator says carbon pollution is changing the climate. That leads to more bacteria that can close beaches and toxic algae blooms that threaten the drinking water for more than 1.6 million Wisconsinites.

The narrator then says Johnson “led the fight to let polluters release unlimited amounts of carbon pollution and took nearly $220,000 from polluters.”

“Tell Sen. Johnson to stop risking Wisconsin water,” the narrator says to close the spot. “Vote for the clean power plan.”

10:06 AM

The Club for Growth today announced a $700,000 ad buy targeting Dem Russ Feingold, including one that labels him “too liberal, too Washington, too yesterday.”

The group, which is backing U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, in his re-election bid, said the spots will air on broadcast and cable TV, as well as digital platforms.

One ad says Feingold wants “us to forget the 18 long years he spent in Washington” because of a record national debt, higher energy taxes, bailouts and “robbing” the Social Security trust fund for more government spending.

“That’s Russ Feingold’s record,” the narrator says.

The second ad includes a song with lyrics about “the bailouts and the liberal way” as old TV footage of Feingold plays. The last line is, “Yes, we remember the Russ Feingold way.”

Monday, September 21, 2015

5:43 PM

Gov. Scott Walker's announcement that he's dropping out of the presidential race prompted sharply different responses from across the political spectrum.

State GOP Chair Brad Courtney, a longtime Walker confidante, said, "Scott, you are still America's governor."

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, was critical of the guv during the budget process for his stance on raising additional revenues for the transportation fund. But he said it was "unfortunate that the bluster of candidates overshadowed his substance."

“The nation’s loss is truly Wisconsin’s gain,” Vos said.

Dems, meanwhile, saw his decision to drop out as a repudiation of Walker's policies.

“The lack of support for Gov. Walker’s presidential campaign is a clear rejection of ‘divide and conquer’ politics and a sign that hardworking families want leaders who are willing to work together toward a brighter future," said Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse.

Said Americans United, "As he limps out of the race at zero percent in the national polls, Scott Walker was a one-trick labor bashing pony and the novelty seems to have worn off even among Republican primary voters."

5:10 PM

Gov. Scott Walker said today he is suspending his presidential campaign so a positive conservative alternative can emerge to billionaire businessman Donald Trump.

Walker did not mention Trump by name while making the announcement at the Edgewater Hotel in downtown Madison. But he bemoaned a GOP presidential primary that is not focused on the optimism of Ronald Reagan, but personal attacks.

“Today I believe I am being called to lead by clearing the field in this race so a positive conservative message can rise to the top of the field,” Walker said.

He encouraged other candidates to consider doing the same so voters can focus on a smaller pool of candidates "who can offer a positive conservative alternative to the current front-runner."

Walker opened his remarks by sending his sympathies to the family of state Supreme Court Justice Pat Crooks, who died today at the state Capitol. Walker then read a brief statement before leaving without taking questions.

Those who have opposed Walker had a small presence both during his speech and outside of the Edgewater. One person clapped when he said he is suspending his campaign, and about 50 protesters waited for him outside, holding signs and singing protest songs.

In his announcement, Walker said he believes the American people want to hear about how to make things better rather than how bad things are.

"In the end, I believe that the voters want to be for something," Walker said, "and not against someone."

The guv said the Republican Party needs to get back to the basics. That includes peace through military strength, the belief that people create jobs and the understanding that success is based on how many people no longer rely on the federal government.

"These ideas will help us win the election next fall," Walker said, "and, more importantly, these ideas will make our country great again."

But achieving those goals will require leadership, he said. And while listening to his pastor in church Sunday, Walker said, he thought about how the Bible is filled with stories of people being called to lead in unusual ways.

The guv touched on religion again when he closed his speech.

"I want to thank God for his abundant grace," Walker said. "Win or lose, it has always been more than enough."

1:07 PM

In today's Walker Watch: Gov. Scott Walker falls below one percent in national polls as he cancels a speech in Michigan to focus on Iowa, voters continue to rate Walker high in favorability, and a Washington Post columnist says the governor had the worst week in Washington.

10:18 AM

Gov. Scott Walker's limited screen time during the second GOP presidential debate was reflected in a lower volume of viewers searching Google for information on the guv during the event.

A Google Trends analysis of search data also shows Walker trailing in online interest during the debate relative to searches on the top four candidates. According to a tally from National Public Radio, Walker spoke for roughly nine minutes during the three-hour debate, nearly 10 minutes less than frontrunner Donald Trump. The top four candidates in online interest were also the top four talkers last night: Trump, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina.

Stats from Google show even the peaks in Walker searches were below the lowest points reached by the top four candidates.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

2:00 PM

In today's Walker Watch: Gov. Scott Walker competes for screen time during a crowded GOP debate, Walker pens a column on workers' interests for an Iowa paper, and fact-checkers analyze the governor's statements during the debate.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

10:51 PM

Criticized for not mixing it up in the first GOP presidential debate, Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday immediately went after GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.

But after his early exchanges, he was not as prominent a factor in the rest of the nearly three-hour debate as the 11 candidates on stage jockeyed for time.

Getting a chance to weigh in on a question on whether the others trusted Trump with access to the nation’s nuclear codes, Walker jumped in to say the debate wasn’t addressing the real issues and immediately pivoted to Trump.

“Mr. Trump, we don’t need an apprentice in the White House. We have one right now,” Walker said.

He went on to knock Trump, saying “we don’t know who you are or where you’re going” and “We need someone who can actually get the job done.”

Trump then returned fire on Walker, saying the state is losing $2.2 billion “right now. I would do so much better than that.”

Walker countered Trump was using Dem talking points and pivoted to knocking Trump for taking four projects into bankruptcy.

That prompted another volley from Trump, who said when people found out the “true facts” about Walker’s record, the governor’s poll numbers tanked.

“When the people of Iowa found that out, I went to No. 1 and you went down the tubes,” Trump said.

Walker later took flak from Rand Paul and Jeb Bush over his call to cancel a state dinner with the Chinese president over cyberattacks on the U.S.

Paul, R-Ky., pointed out President Reagan continued to communicate with Russia during the Cold War and pivoted to Walker’s call to tear up President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran on the first day of his administration, saying the next president should first see if the country complied with the agreement.

Paul said he does not support the deal, but that doesn’t mean he would immediately cut it up.

“I don’t think we need to be rash. I don’t think we need to reckless, and I think we need to keep lines of communication open,” Paul said.

Walker countered if the U.S. were ever going to send a message to China, now is the time. He also defended his call to tear up the nuclear deal, saying it will put Iran closer to nuclear weapon.

“I would love to play cards with this guy because Barack Obama folds on everything with Iran,” Walker said.

Moderator Jake Tapper then turned to Bush, who said the U.S. needs to be strong against China and should impose stiffer sanctions than what the president has proposed. But canceling a dinner is “not going to change anything.”

“It’s not a strategy to tear up an agreement,” Bush said. “A strategy would be what are we doing to do about Iran?”

Though Walker mixed it up early in the nearly three-hour debate, the 11 candidates on the stage meant he also went long periods without getting involved in the discussion. One tally of the talking times for each candidate had Walker last at 8 minutes, 29 seconds. By comparison, Trump was at 18:29.

After a series of volleys about Planned Parenthood, Walker jumped in to turn the discussion to a shot at GOP leaders in Washington, D.C., saying Republicans are frustrated because they don’t understand why legislation can’t pass to defund Planned Parenthood. He then called on Republicans to ignore the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate.

“Pass it with 51 votes, put it on the desk of the president and go forward and actually make a point,” Walker said.

Walker then went more than a half hour before getting a chance to chime in again after Tapper asked about the guv’s comments that talk of raising the minimum wage was “lame.”

Walker turned it into an answer about cutting taxes, reforming the tax code, providing a better education system and his pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Tapper said Walker didn’t answer the question and went to Ben Carson. But Walker butted in after Carson’s answer to insist he had addressed the question. The guv said Hillary Clinton’s answer to growing the economy is increasing the minimum wage.

“I don’t want to argue about how low things are going to be,” Walker said. “I want to talk about how do we lift up everyone in America.”

Walker also jumped in after Bush defended his brother’s handling of national security following a knock from Trump.

As Bush said his brother kept the country safe, Trump chimed in, “I don’t know. Do you feel safe right now? I don’t feel so safe.”

Walker cut in, “It’s not because of George W. Bush. It’s because of Barack Obama.”

Walker then said it was an issue of leadership, saying he didn’t back down when he faced 100,000 protesters at the Wisconsin Capitol, when he and his family faced death threats or when opponents made him the “No. 1 target” last year.

He also jumped in as others discussed climate change, saying rules proposed by the EPA would cost Wisconsin thousands of manufacturing jobs.

During a series of lighthearted questions, Walker, who worked for the Red Cross briefly after leaving Marquette, said he’d put the organization’s founder Clara Barton on the $10 bill and said he’d prefer his code name if elected president to be “Harley” for his love of Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Tapper closed the debate by asking the candidates what the world would look like after their presidency, noting the Air Force One behind them was the one that carried Reagan as president.

Walker, who has seen his own survey numbers drop, noted Reagan trailed in the polls ahead of his landslide 1980 election. Walker then said Americans need to live in a world where their children are free from the threat of radical Islamic terrorism, everyone can live a piece of the American dream, and the federal government is not too big to fail, but “small enough to succeed.”

He then pivoted to his fight against “big-government union bosses” and special interests.

“I won’t back down any any day, any way, any how,” Walker said. “I‘ll fight and win for you and your families every single day I’m in office.”

10:22 AM

Supreme Court Justice Pat Crooks announced today he will not seek re-election.

The 77-year-old justice noted today is the 38th anniversary of his swearing in for the Brown County bench following an appointment by then-Acting Gov. Martin Schreiber. He won his first term on the state Supreme Court in 1996 and was unopposed as he sought re-election in 2006.

"I have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to serve as a judge and justice and to have had the support of the voters of Brown County and Wisconsin over the years," Crooks said.

Appeals Court Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg and Milwaukee County Judge Joe Donald have already announced plans to seek Crooks' seat next year, and Appeals Court Judge Rebecca Bradley has filed paperwork to run as well. Madison attorney Claude Covelli has said he is considering a bid.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

11:44 AM

In today's Walker Watch: Ahead of Wednesday's GOP debate, Gov. Scott Walker proposes sweeping reforms to federal union regulations while in Las Vegas, John Bolton takes Walker's place at a gathering of California Republicans, and pundits question the governor's ability to recover in the polls.

12:30 PM

In today's Walker Watch: Gov. Scott Walker
criticizes President Obama over recent police slayings, the governor details
his plan to restrict national unions, and he works to reverse a slump in national
polls by returning to Iowa.

8:58 AM

As new national poll numbers show a sharp decline in support, Gov. Scott Walker today will lay out his plan to undercut the federal influence of labor unions.

He's promising to try banning them from the federal workplace and seeking to eliminate the National Labor Relations Board if elected president, according to a white paper his campaign released this morning.

Walker's call, to be delivered during a speech in Las Vegas, will also include implementing a national right-to-work law.

Walker initially tried to dissuade state lawmakers from taking up right-to-work legislation in Wisconsin, but eventually backed the push that succeeded earlier this year. He will tout the Wisconsin law and promise to push a similar national bill for all private, state and local public sector workers. Under the guv's plan, a state would have to vote to opt out of the national right-to-work position.

"Any economic plan that does not bring our federal labor laws into the 21st century is incomplete," Walker will say, according to prepared remarks. "To grow the economy at a higher rate, requires a comprehensive approach and reform of the labor unions is a key part of the plan."

The proposed changes to labor laws are part of Walker's "day one" promises of what he would do his first day in office if elected president.

He will also say the NLRB has become a "one-sided proxy for the big union bosses." The agency, which is celebrating its 80th anniversary, is charged with overseeing labor union elections and investigating complaints under the National Labor Relations Act.

Walker will pledge to transfer the NLRB's current responsibilities to other parts of the federal government.

"We need to level the playing field which will make it easier to create more jobs and higher wages," Walker will say.

In addition, Walker will propose a slew of other changes in labor laws.

The proposal includes:

*requiring unions to disclose their expenditures, including compensation for officers, and directing the Department of Labor to provide states with information on how much they could save if they "reformed" their existing collective bargaining policies.

*requiring federal employee unions to detail the portion of dues used for political activity and prohibit them from withholding that amount from workers' checks.

*seeking the elimination of Davis-Bacon, which impacts wages paid for federal highways projects, and end the use of project labor agreements, which establish the terms for employment on specific construction projects.

*working to ensure individual union employees can receive bonuses for their work.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

10:52 PM

MILWAUKEE -- Hillary Clinton took direct aim at Scott Walker during a campaign stop here, mocking the governor and her potential presidential rival for thinking he's "some kind of tough guy on his motorcycle."

Clinton, making her first campaign stop of the cycle in Wisconsin, said Walker has made it his personal mission to "roll back" women's rights by cutting state funding to Planned Parenthood and signing legislation to ban abortions after 20 weeks with no exceptions for rape or incest.

“Gov. Walker thinks that because he busts unions, starves universities, guts public education, demeans women, scapegoats teachers, nurses and firefighters, he’s some kind of tough guy on his motorcycle, a real leader,” Clinton said. “That is not leadership. Real leadership is fighting for the people you represent.”

Walker fired back at Clinton over Twitter writing, ".@HillaryClinton your affinity for flying private jets on taxpayers dime is well known. I for one prefer this ride-SW" along with a picture of him on top of a motorcycle. He also tweeted, ".@HillaryClinton while you pander to union bosses, I give workers freedom to choose if they want to be in a union or not. - SW"

Clinton made several references to Walker during the speech.

“Even though women in Wisconsin are still paid less than men, with women of color making even less, Scott Walker repealed protections for equal pay,” Clinton said. “Maybe he just doesn’t realize that when women are shortchanged, entire families are shortchanged.”

The crowd filled the UW-Milwaukee student union and spilled into an overflow room. The crowd nearly drowned out Clinton’s speech repeatedly with cheers and chants of “Hill-a-ry,” forcing Clinton to shout.

A small group interrupted the speech at one point by shouting, “Deportation. Not one more.” Some hecklers called out “What about the emails?” and made references to Benghazi. Clinton did not react to the interruptions.

During the speech, Clinton vowed if elected president she would seek to allow students to refinance student debt, automatically register to vote everyone turning 18, increase the minimum wage and ensure equal pay for equal work.

“I believe that raising incomes and supporting families is the defining economic challenge of our times. I will make that the focus of my campaign and the mission of my presidency,” Clinton said at the event, which was billed as a "Women for Hillary" grassroots organizing meeting.

“If advocating for equal pay for equal work is playing the gender card, deal me in,” Clinton said.

Clinton also brought up the case of the fatal shooting by police of a man who was sleeping in downtown Milwaukee’s Red Arrow Park.

“As a mother and grandmother, my heart breaks for the family of Dontre Hamilton,” she said, noting that Hamilton’s mother was in the audience. “We need to restore the trust between law enforcement and the people they serve. We need to recognize that the ability of black mothers to raise their children in safety is a women’s issue – it’s an American issue,” she said.

“I know this is politically dicey,” she added. “We need real solutions for ending gun violence. ... I’m not going to sit by and stay silent while more innocent people are killed in their churches, killed in movie theaters and walking down the street. We have to address it.”

Clinton ripped the GOP presidential hopefuls, calling Donald Trump a “flamboyant frontrunner who has grabbed attention” but slamming the other candidates for mimicking Trump and failing to call him out for “saying hateful things about immigrants -- even their babies -- and saying hateful things about women.”

“They’re all Trump without the pizzazz and the hair,” said Clinton, adding that the “party of Lincoln has become the party of Trump.”

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett told the crowd that he enjoyed the first GOP debate, expecting the presidential hopefuls to “wrestle each other to see who could leapfrog over each other to the right” the most.

Barrett said he wants Hillary to be the one negotiating with other countries. “She’s been there, she understands the world,” said Barrett. “She doesn’t have to look at a map to find out where the countries are.”